How Suniel Shetty-Backed Klassroom Is Revolutionising Education For Underprivileged Children

Edtech, especially K-12, has had a recent few months to forget. Lack of funding and increased competition from traditional classroom-based coaching centres starkly contrasts the edtech boom of 2020 and 2021, when funding was flowing and edtechs commanded high valuations.

Cut to 2022- 2023, many big edtechs, including BYJU’S, Unacademy and Physics Wallah, have been beefing up their offline front – with BYJU’S acquiring Aakash and the rest building their classroom experiences from scratch.

Founded in 2016, Mumbai-based Klassroom Edutech is an edtech startup building a hybrid education experience. The founders, mother-and-sons trio of Alka, Dhruv and Dhumil Javeri, told Inc42 that the startup is working to support rural and urban students with affordable, accessible, accountable and flexible education.

Apart from K-12, Klassroom also has a test prep vertical for exams such as IIT-JEE, CA and CS, among others.

However, the startup’s social initiative – Klassroom for Bharat – has been one of the primary reasons for Bollywood actor and serial investor Suniel Shetty to participate in the startup’s Pre-Series A round, chipping in an undisclosed amount.

Klassroom For All

Primarily, the startup is operating a hybrid model with online classes on its app and coaching classes operational across Mumbai. Klassroom claims to have nearly 60,000 students on its roll.

The startup also offers a scholarship programme for enrolled students, claiming to have distributed INR 20 Lakh in scholarships so far.

Apart from its business operations, Klassroom is working with the government to facilitate access to its online learning programme to 2,650 schools via NGOs and partnerships with social trusts, with a cumulative strength of 5 Lakh students.

The actor-turned-investor is further backing the Mumbai-based edtech’s social initiatives with the Suniel Shetty Scholarship Scheme. According to the founders, the startup will use the funding to shore up tech and scale offline presence.

On its social front, Klassroom will also use the funding to prepare digital content based on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, to be used at the schools it supports.

Apart from Shetty, the edtech startup has raised funding from the likes of ah! Ventures Angel Fund, Hem Angels, Pavan Bakeri (managing director, Bakeri Group) and Kishore Ganji (founder, Astir Ventures), among others. In all, to date, Klassroom has raised a total of $1 Mn in funding across various rounds.

The startup will strengthen its social impact to more than 20 Mn students in the next three years while enrolling 5 Lakh students over the next year.

Suniel Shetty’s Startups Investments

Speaking with Inc42, Shetty said he has always looked for the social aspect of a startup before investing.

“I’m not looking at companies that are only talking about becoming unicorns,” said the Bollywood actor, adding that he aims to support startups that are doing good for society.

On Klassroom, the Bollywood actor said, “My father always believed in education being the most powerful weapon one can ever hold; it can never go out of fashion.”

Talking about his investments, Shetty said, “I’m investing in startups in fields I’m comfortable being in.”

Suniel Shetty had last invested in WAAYU, a Mumbai-based food delivery platform, taking on Swiggy and Zomato with its zero-commission playbook. Speaking on what WAAYU’s investment meant for him, Shetty said, “Food delivery aggregators solved a major problem, but that solution itself became a problem because there was a 25-30% commission. My industry was bleeding profits.”

“Even if WAAYU grows 2X, I’m happy because you attempted to do something about the problem,” said Shetty.

Shetty’s next startup investment might be in biohacking, healthtech, deeptech or related verticals. “I’m looking at 80 and 100 being the next senior citizen landmark. If biohacking is the way forward, so be it,” the Bollywood actor told Inc42.

Recent developments notwithstanding, K-12 remains the biggest subsector in India’s edtech sector, with K-12 startups having raised $7.6 Bn in funding between 2014 and 2022, according to Inc42 data.

Per Inc42’s ‘The Future Of Edtech In India: Decoding The $29 Bn Market Opportunity’ report, K-12 will become a $15 Bn market opportunity by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 26% between 2022 and 2030. In other words, K-12 will account for more than half of the total edtech market opportunity by the end of the decade.

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First published on May 30th, republished with inputs.